Why Would They Falsely Confess?
Why on earth would an innocent person falsely confess to committing a crime? To most people, it just doesn't seem logical. But it is logical, say experts, if you understand what can happen in a police interrogation (审讯) room.
Under the right conditions, people's minds are susceptible (易受影响的) to influence, and the pressure put on suspects during police grillings (盘问) is enormous. (46) "The pressure is important to understand, because otherwise it's impossible to understand why someone would say he did something he didn't do. The answer is: to put an end to an uncomfortable situation that will continue until he does confess."
Developmental psychologist Allison Redlich recently conducted a laboratory study to determine how likely people are to confess to things they didn't do. (47) The researchers then intentionally crashed the computers and accused the participants of hitting the "alt" key to see if they would sign a statement falsely taking responsibility.
Redlich's findings clearly demonstrate how easy it can be to get people to falsely confess: 59 percent of the young adults in the experiment immediately confessed. (48) Of the 15- to 16-year-olds, 72 percent signed confessions, as did 78 percent of the 12- to 13-year-olds.
"There's no question that young people are more at risk," says Saul Kassin, a psychology professor at Williams College, who has done similar studies with similar results. (49)
Both Kassin and Redlich note that the entire "interrogation" in their experiments consisted of a simple accusation——not hours of aggressive questioning——and still, most participants falsely confessed.
Because of the stress of a police interrogation, they conclude, suspects can become convinced that falsely confessing is the easiest way out of a bad situation. (50)
A In her experiment, participants were seated at computers and told not to hit the "alt" key, because doing so would crash the systems.
B "In some ways," says Kassin, "false confession becomes a rational decision."
C "It's a little like somebody's working on them with a dental (牙齿的) drill," says Franklin Zimring, a law professor at the University of California at Berkeley.
D "But adults are highly vulnerable too."
E How could an innocent person admit to doing something he didn't do?
F Redlich also found that the younger the participant, the more likely a false confession.
答案 46. C 47. A 48. F 49. D 50. B
解析
46. C 解答此题时要注意，空后是一段引文，而空前又没有引文，所以此空处一定是引用了某人的话，因此答案只可能在B、C、D中。但D只是一句引用的话并没有提及是谁说的，这不符常理，故排除。B 虽然提到了 Kassin，但没有对其身份进行说明，这也不符“第一次提到某人是要有说明”的习惯(实际上他出现在第五段)，故排除B.因此只能选C，从内容上看也符合。
47. A 本段提到一个心理学家做了一个实验(a laboratory study)，也提到了 crashed the computers 和 the "alt" key ,这些都和选项A 对应了起来。这也是补全短文的重要策略，文章和选项的对应关系。
48. F 分析了缺空处前后的句子，得知年龄越小越容易错误地妥协。
49. D 本段首句提到“毫无疑问年轻人错误妥协的危险性很大”，然后从选项中看，D在形式(引文)和内容(adults 与 上文 young people 形成对比)均符合文意。
50. B 由于审讯室的巨大压力，嫌疑人很可能为了逃离那种环境而承认自己本没有做过的事。因此，Kassin说，从某种程度上看，错误的妥协在那种情况下是一种理性的选择。